If ever there has been questions about scams and ripoffs in wedding industry, this is a blog dedicated to all brides and grooms to know the truth.
1. Wedding photographers spend way more than 4 hours on your wedding than the wedding industry says.
Often there is a shock when a couple looks at the price tag which is attached to the wedding services. With comment reaction “I only need you for 4 hours”.
One thing that some couples don’t know is that wedding photographer will spend many hours outside of the wedding day on timeline planning, meetings, travel, communications and all other necessary coordinations to make sure that the four hours which couple wants would be easy for everyone. Also this would not include the time and investment in education and training to make sure the photographers skills are up to date.
On average a wedding photographer spends close to 65 hours on each wedding, thats according to online surveys. When everything is calculated such as hours a photographer is only making $37/hour and thats with out expanses! This would be VERY close to other professionals such as DJs, florist, officiants, and wedding planners.
When you consider that most professionals in wedding industry on average make less than $25,000 in a whole year, while average cost of a wedding in US is around $25,000. So most wedding professionals are not living large on “wedding ripoffs”, but a charge often lodged by the BIG media.
2. Hire amateur and expect amateur photos.
Now, I know I have talked about this in previous blogs but some how I would like to bring it up again. You are hiring a professional wedding photographer not a commodity item, who have talent, experience, and a unique personality. Thats why professional wedding photographers do charge more because it is worth every penny.
But as I mentioned before, amateurs that are being hired by brides every day for dimes and thats what you will pay for.
Yet, you might get lucky and get the next Annie Leibovitz for the wedding, but in reality, most likely you will get sub-par performance with bargain price.
3. You pay more for wedding services because you get more.
Much has been made of the so-called “wedding markup,” a phenomenon that occurs when secret shoppers get quoted a higher price for identical services when they are booked for a wedding as opposed to another type of event. While this certainly can occur, journalists neglect to address the very real reasons WHY this happens.
Providing any service for a wedding is far more involved than a similar, non-wedding event. Wedding pros make themselves available for planning meetings, calls and consultations, and may well send hundreds of emails back and forth with a single client in the year or more of planning up to the wedding.
This type of time and attention isn’t expected or required for most non-wedding events; the time investment alone is enough to justify a higher price. The quality of wedding services often requires a greater degree of skill and specialization, not to mention the stress and risk involved should something go wrong.
4. Wedding photographers also stay up at night worrying about your big day as well.
Wedding photographers might photograph from dozen to even hundreds of wedding per year but yours IS important as any other wedding.
Because any wedding can make or break the photographers reputation. Pros do sweat the small and big stuff because its their responsibility. If we mess up on something, because of viral sharing today it just very well destroy our business.
5. Paying attention to what we say might not only save you time but money and stress.
We as photographers know that you have ideas and enthusiasm but also know that what we recommend as changes for your wedding doesn’t mean we what to take over your big day. Great photographers have best interests at heart.
Like in previous blog, I and other wedding photographers who have been married made mistakes, and thats what inspires us to make sure that pain NEVER happens to you.
If you only let us we as wedding experts, who have knowledge and experience can and will save you time, help you to make sure not to make mistakes and even make your wedding better.
6. $10,000 is your budget for the wedding? Sorry but we can’t make it look like you had $100,000 budget.
Weddings can be expensive, and you certainly don’t have to spend a lot of money. But if you’re going to trim your budget, please don’t expect it to be a carbon copy of the Royal wedding.
It’s not because we don’t want to do it for you…it’s just impossible.
7. Just because we love what we do it doesn’t mean we can do it 24 hours a day.
Wedding industry is HARD work. It can be very stressful because of timelines, deadlines and pressure to make sure everything is perfectly done.
Brides and grooms get anxiety that can give nightmares. Well we get then too, and sometimes we would like a break.
As it was mentioned before, EVERY wedding is important but we can loose our sanity if we do this 24/7. So remember if you want to call your planner at 3am or before freaking out because your text message was not answered immediately know that we have lives as well.
8. It takes WAY more time and money to imitate those DIY projects and wedding inspiration shoots than you think.
We love that wedding porn as much as you do, but it sets up unrealistic expectations. Wedding blogs and wedding reality TV misrepresent the details of what’s actually possible for a typical wedding with an average budget…one that doesn’t have a team of expert designers and planners working magic behind the scenes.
The media accuses the wedding industry of encouraging these unrealistic expectations so that you spend more more money. The truth is that we hate it as much as you do!
It makes our job more difficult, and it puts us in the uncomfortable position of telling you, “No,” when it can’t be done on your budget.
9. What is not a bargain? Is DIY projects.
80% of the time, when couples think they are going to save money by doing a wedding in a backyard, they don’t consider the cost of booze, silverware, food, tent and so on. In the end the couple will spend MORE than it would be hosting a traditional wedding in reception hall.
The same thing goes for your favors, centerpieces and flowers. It’s going to take you 10x longer and cost twice as much in reworks and mistakes than you think—especially if you’re a perfectionist. And I have seen and heard of this so many times from previous clients.
So please don’t choose to DIY your wedding for the savings; make sure you actually like being crafty, and that you can adjust your expectations to accommodate less than perfection.
10. Weddings are not perfect, BUT we will try to make sure it is as close as possible to perfect.
In my experience I have not seen a wedding where at least one thing didn’t go wrong. Groom or bride will be late (that also goes to bridal party), or your guest will forget to take home those favors which you have have sweated over. There are way to many details and too tight of a timeline for everything to be completely be perfect.
Yet, if something does go wrong, we’ll be there to help you make it right.
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Enjoy this post by Sacramento wedding photographer provided by Shutter Avenue Photography offering Sacramento wedding photography in the Sacramento metro area.
Shutter Avenue Photography is not your regular Sacramento wedding photographer. Every wedding that Shutter Avenue Photography photographs is treated with care and creativity not found with any other Sacramento wedding photography studio. Shutter Avenue Photography captures your wedding day in a unique photography style in the Sacramento area.
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Special Thanks To: Stephanie Padovani